Aerial rescue lifts man from ravine

Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies used a 100-foot line Saturday to rescue a man suffering from a heat-related injury in a remote ravine several miles east of Geyserville, deputies reported today.

At 12:52 p.m. Saturday, the sheriff’s office dispatched a sheriff’s helicopter from Santa Rosa to an area owned by the Bureau of Land Management at the top of Pine Flat Road in northeastern Sonoma County, according to deputies.

A 29-year-old man was reportedly in distress due to heat exposure in a heavily vegetated ravine about 300 yards east of Pine Flat, deputies said.

The chopper pilot landed on a ridge and configured the aircraft for a long line rescue. Two crew members attached themselves to the end of a 100-foot line and the pilot flew them down to the patient, according to the office.

The stricken man was not able to walk out of the area himself, deputies said.

The crew members placed him in a rescue devise on the line and the pilot flew him and the two deputies to the top of the ridge, according to deputies.

The man was treated at the scene by paramedics and then released to a friend of his, deputies reported.